Change Your Brain Every Day - Why is it So Hard to Accept Others’ Beliefs? With Rice Broocks

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

Everyone has their own path to faith, or lack thereof, and everyone’s personal connection with their faith is different. Unfortunately, many of those with strong religious beliefs are prone to antagonism and even hatred when it comes to addressing those with differences. In this episode of the podcast, “God’s Not Dead” author Rice Broocks illustrates how emotional allegiance is often to blame for this discordance, and how we can transcend these rifts.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. Tana and I are with Pastor Rice Brooks. We are having such an interesting discussion. And we are in where is God week. And every book I've signed for the last 30 years, I always sign it with hope. Because that's what our work does, is've watched the God's Not Dead movies, is that there's transformation and hope.

And you've been doing this for a long time. What keeps you inspired every day to know where God is? Gosh, let me ponder that. That's a great question. You know, a little story. After 9-11, the day after 9-11, I drove to New York from Nashville. I just was watching the buildings and go down and I just couldn't stay home. So I'd start driving. I thought surely my wife would tell me no, but she said, I think you should go. So we drive all night, get there on the 13th of September. And as I was leaving the house there in Nashville, I had this thought to call someone in the media,

in a local NBC anchor, in our local affiliate there in Nashville, and she answered 10.30 at night. And I said, do you know anybody in the New York media? She said, I've got one name. Let me make sure I get a number. Well, the name she gave me was the name. Her name was Alice Ree. Alice was a producer for MSNBC. And when we got there two days after 9 11 at night, as close as we could get to the ground zero, it was called the armory and everybody had their pictures up of missing. If you remember those, those images of people saying a friend is missing and they had these little makeshift posters, but there was really not much hope, but they were just to the last,

till they knew that their loved ones were definitely gone. They were going to fight for them and try to find them. Well, Alice really looked at me, here she is. And she stared at me, she said, what are you doing here? I had three other pastors and she said, I was at Columbine covering that and she says, here you guys show up. She said, I just prayed. God, if you're here, if you're real, why are you letting this happen? And she says, I was just, in her own words, basically about to give up on God and you

guys show up. So I go back to Nashville on the Sunday after 9-11 and I stood up in our church and I said, I don't know how we're going to do it, but we're going to plant a congregation in New York. And a guy comes out of the crowd. He said, I have a theater right on Times Square. You can use it. So if you know Times Square, it's where the ABC corner is. And there was Toys R Us was there.

I mean, just a few feet up was the Lambs Theater. And this guy was affiliated with it. So within one month, I would do my three services in Nashville and jump in a plane and speak in New York City. I did that for an entire year. She ended up finding our church and became a part of it. But I stood, I sat there Sunday night after Sunday night in New York City, one month after 9-11, quite the contrast to the Nashville Bible Belt crowd, and had to hear the stories of people that had lost someone, and that very question of where was God.

I wrote a little book called Finding Faith at Ground Zero. And Larry King actually mentioned on there, but I just wrote this five little chapters. We just gave it all over the city. And that was the first chapter where it was God. And I think what inspires me is to see that moment where people who could easily have turned from God. And as you just mentioned about hope, they just suddenly something hits them that this is not God that did that. This is God is the one that's the solution.

He's not the problem. So God did not create the Holocaust. God hated 9-11. Hated 9-11. But if you don't have choice, then you don't have free will. Well, we live in a world right now where there's just, as we were talking before we started, there's so much vitriol, there's so much hatred. And you know, you've got, there's just so much hatred toward all religions, not just Christianity,

not just Muslims, not just Jews. It's like there are people from every walk of life who hate every other religion. And as a Christian, that makes me sad because we have people who watch us from all over the world. I have friends who are Muslim. I have friends who are Jewish. I have friends who are... How can we get to a place where we can believe what we believe and respect, you know, I respect my friends.

Why can't we do this with people from around the world? What will it take to be able to believe what we believe and be able to have a respectful conversation about this? Yeah, two parts to that, and I'll try to be brief and amazing. First of all, Christianity is true. The reason I'm a Christian is because it's true. So when a parent says to me, well, I don't want to force my religion down my children's throat, which I don't believe in, but I say, well, but you don't say that about the multiplication tables. You know, and the reason why

is because you believe they're true. You're not quite sure about this. It's almost like Christianity or whatever your religion is, it's like your culture. It's like, you know, USC versus UCLA. It's really more of an emotional allegiance rather than what's true. So if you really come, first of all,

to believe that Christianity is true, God really exists. He really sent his son who really lived in history. He really died on a cross and rose again in history. So out of the confidence of that, then you say, well, now as a Christian, what am I commanded to be like? So the first thing you're supposed to do

is love your neighbor. Right, right. So love God, love your neighbor. Right, right. So love God, love your neighbor. Hello. Hello, you know. Or as my kids, like, love your neighbor or something. Or something. Or something, yeah.

Not all of my kids will be watching this. So I lived in Israel, studied in Israel. I do programs where I brought, you know, then the ambassador, Danny Ayalon, from Israel to the United States. He came to our church. Ron Dermer, the current Israeli ambassador, he's been in my home there in Nashville. And so we're building bridges between Christians and Jews and the Jewish community. And when they say to me, well, you don't, why are you doing this? I'm saying, look, I'm not here because I'm a good guy. I'm not a good guy

apart from God. God changed me in college. So now he has commanded me to love my neighbor. So I'm really commanded to love you. That doesn't mean I'm loving you to try to convert you. Now I'd like you to believe what I'm saying is true. I lived in Algeria. My dad drilled all wells in the Sahara desert. So I lived in Algiers, which is a beautiful city, obviously, you know, very Muslim now and many, in many, most part militant. But yet we can go into people of other faiths and other beliefs confident that what we have is called public truth. It's a statement made by, I won't mention his name, but he's a legendary theologian who came back from India to England

and saw that Christianity in the 70s was kind of receding in England. And he said, the reason why is, he said, because people see their faith as private truth, not public truth. He said, because the gospel happened in history, it's public truth. So we come into the public square

to present our gospel, in history, it's public truth. So we come into the public square to present our gospel, our truth, but we do it with, 1 Peter 3.15 says, "'Always be ready to give a reason "'for the hope that's within you.'" And people love to quote that, but there's another part, "'With gentleness and respect.'"

And so it's as important as it is to teach somebody the truth of Christianity, it's the way it's as important as it is to teach somebody the truth of Christianity, it's the way it's presented. I was getting my coffee one day, and this guy doing my coffee reached down and he grabbed my cup and handed me my coffee like this with his fingers like I was getting my fingernails done. Oh, that's so funny. And his hands didn't need a manicure.

And I just looked at him and I said, we're going to start all over. We're going to start. I just was real kind. And I think a lot of times we give people the gospel, but our presentation is so off that people are repulsed by the demeanor that we have. And I think when you start, I teach a little principle called SALT. You start a conversation, you ask questions, you listen, and then you tell the story. So don't start in the other. The other version is the talk method. You start talking, you argue, you get louder, and then you kick them.

So I think if you will listen respectfully to people, then they will in turn listen to you. So we can exchange our beliefs, make our claims for truth, but then trust that the truth of our message will win, not the emotion or the anger. It's like when you're married. I always said in marriage seminars, the more right my wife is, the louder I get. In other words, it's like, hey, she's really got me mad.

So sometimes we have to realize that when someone's right, if I'm right, I don't have to be angry. If I'm not right, I can't afford to be. Right. That's a good point. So it's like in either case, in either case, the best thing is, is if you keep your cool, if you tell the truth and don't have to have the last word, I think that wins the day. And I think I did an event at, remember Rosie Greer? Remember Rosie? I know Rosie. She's one of our players. Well, Rosie's, well, you tell Rosie hello, but Rosie, when he had a moment of faith back in 1980,

came to Christ, he traveled with me for about three years. It was Rice and Rosie on campuses. Cute. And anyway, so, but Rosie would, Rosie basically would, his, I'm just, with a brain surgeon or a brain doctor, and I'm forgetting why I brought it up, so now you're diagnosing me on this camera.

You forgot what you were saying. But I think the point they're saying is that everywhere we would go with Rosie, he would make the point to people that it was the kindness of God that led. It was kindness. It says Romans 2, 4, the kindness of God leads you to repentance. And that's the thing that I noticed today, whether it's religion or politics or whatever's going on, people are just so hateful. How are you ever going to hear what someone is saying? So go through salt again is.

You start a conversation. You ask questions. You listen. And then you talk. So that's not what's happening no our society and people don't know it's really insidious news channels purposefully lead with negativity and hatred because that's actually what pushes on the nucleus accumbens, which we talk about. And it drives fear, which then draws viewers. And

we are being sabotaged if we allow that to happen. Stay with us. I have a question I have to answer. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation

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